Juan José Esparragoza Moreno

Juan José Esparragoza Moreno (born February 3, 1949), commonly referred to by his alias El Azul (English: "The Blue One"), is a Mexican drug lord and leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, a drug trafficking organization. Originally a member of the Dirección Federal de Seguridad (DFS) police agency, he founded the Guadalajara Cartel in the 1970s along with other drug kingpins in Mexico. Following its disintegration in the late 1980s, he went on to lead the Juárez Cartel, and eventually settled in the Sinaloa Cartel.

Contents

Contents

1 Early life

2 Guadalajara Cartel

2.1 Kidnapping, torture, and murder of Camarena

3 Juárez Cartel

4 The Federation / Sinaloa Alliance

5 Bounty

6 Kingpin Act sanctions

7 Alleged death

Early life

Juan José Esparragoza Moreno was born in Huixiopa, Badiraguato, Sinaloa, Mexico on 3 February 1949.[1][2][A 1] He has an alternative date of birth on 2 March 1949 listed on the United States government databases.[5] In the 1970s, he joined the Dirección Federal de Seguridad (DFS), a now-extinct Mexican federal police agency, where he befriended police commanders involved in organized crime.[6] Esparragoza Moreno's nickname, "El Azul" (English: "The Blue One"), derives from his complexion. He is said to be so dark that his skin appears to be blue.[7][8]

Guadalajara Cartel

After the implementation of Operation Condor (Spanish: Operación Cóndor),
a Mexican antidrug program carried out in the 1970s to stop the flow of
drugs from Mexico to the United States, many drug traffickers from the
state of Sinaloa regrouped in Guadalajara, Jalisco to continue their operations.[9] The regrouping led to the formation of the Guadalajara Cartel,[10]
a drug trafficking organization that eventually managed to control
nearly all the narcotics trafficking operations in Mexico throughout the
late 1970s and 1980s. Among their original founders were Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo (alias "El Padrino"), Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo (alias "Don Neto"), Rafael Caro Quintero, Esparragoza Moreno, and other Sinaloan drug kingpins.[11][12]
Throughout most of the 1970s and early 1980s, most of the cocaine that
was smuggled to the United States was trafficked by the Colombian drug
cartels through Florida and the Caribbean Sea.[13]
However, with increased law enforcement measures in these areas by the
mid-1980s, the Colombian drug kingpins shifted their operations to
Mexico.[14]

The Guadalajara Cartel took advantage of this opportunity and began
supplying cocaine for the Colombian groups through the U.S-Mexico
border. But instead of simply acting as smugglers, the cartel leaders
decided to take a share of the cocaine profits for themselves (the
shares were often as high as 50%).[15]
Under their leadership, the Guadalajara Cartel initially oversaw the
production and distribution of marijuana and opium poppies to the United
States; by the 1980s, the cartel began to expand its operations and
include cocaine in its repertoire.[15][16]
The Guadalajara Cartel managed to traffic cocaine to the U.S. in
multi-ton shipments each month, and their leaders reportedly amassed a
fortune. At the same time, the cartel enjoyed a level of protection
through the DFS police agency; several of its members were involved in
organized crime directly by actively participating in murder and drug
trafficking on the cartel's behalf.[17]

With the growing influence of the Guadalajara Cartel, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) started to conduct covert operations in Mexico. One of its special agents, Enrique Camarena Salazar, was sent to the DEA offices in Guadalajara and started to work undercover by infiltrating the Guadalajara Cartel.[18]
During his tenure in Guadalajara, Camerena uncovered some of the
workings of the cartel and even befriended Félix Gallardo and others. In
November 1984, Camarena directed Mexican authorities to a 220 acres
(0.89 km2) marijuana plantation in Chihuahua
known as Rancho Búfalo (English: "Buffalo Ranch"), which was owned by
the Guadalajara Cartel. Upon their arrival, the Mexican soldiers
destroyed tons in marijuana valuing in over US$8 billion. The raid
resulted in a major financial blow for the Guadalajara Cartel, and its
leaders vowed to retaliate against those responsible for directing the
Mexican government to the location. Within four months, Félix Gallardo
discovered that Camarena had betrayed him.[8][19]

Kidnapping, torture, and murder of Camarena

In
broad daylight on 7 February 1985, several DFS police officers
kidnapped Camarena as he left the U.S. Consulate in Guadalajara.[20][21]
A few hours before the incident, his pilot Alfredo Zavala Avelar, who
had conducted operations for the DEA alongside Camarena, had been
abducted.[22] Camarena was taken to Caro Quintero's home in the city,[23]
where he was tortured to confess his knowledge of law enforcement
operations directed against the Guadalajara Cartel. After they retrieved
the information, the kidnappers tortured the DEA agent for their own
amusement.[24]
In the 30-hour-long torture session, Camarena's skull, jaw, nose,
cheekbones, windpipe, and ribs were broken; the kidnappers hired a
doctor to administer drugs on the agent to keep him alive and conscious
throughout the whole session.[25] The kidnappers videotaped some parts of Camarena's interrogation.[26] The final blow was apparently done when the torturers punctured his skull with a screwdriver or dagger.[27] Camarena and Zavala corpses were then transported to the neighboring state of Michoacán
and buried in a clandestine ranch. Both of their decomposing remains
were discovered by Mexican authorities a few months later on 5 March
1985.[28][29]

The murder of Camarena outraged the U.S. government and put pressure
on Mexico to arrest all the major players involved in the incident,
resulting in a four-year law enforcement manhunt that brought down
several leaders of the Guadalajara Cartel.[30] Caro Quintero was arrested in Costa Rica on 4 April 1985 after fleeing Mexico;[31] on 7 April 1985, Fonseca Carrillo was nabbed by the Mexican police in Jalisco;[32] on March 1986, authorities arrested Esparragoza Moreno in Mexico City under the direction of the DFS police commander Florentino Ventura.[20][33]
He was imprisoned at the Reclusorio Sur penitentiary in Mexico City on
11 March 1986 for drug trafficking charges and for his alleged
participation in the murder of Camarena. Esparragoza Moreno did not
admit to the charges against him and said that he was innocent. A
federal judge, however, sentenced him to seven years and two months
behind bars. On 9 July 1990, he was transferred to another prison in
Mexico City, and on March 1992 he was moved to the Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1 (known simply as "La Palma") in Almoloya de Juárez, State of Mexico. A year later, Esparragoza Moreno fulfilled his sentence and was released from prison.[34][35]

While Esparragoza Moreno was in prison, Félix Gallardo was arrested
at his home in Guadalajara on April 1989. In efforts to keep the drug
trade in Mexico working while he was behind bars, Félix Gallardo called
for an organized crime summit in Acapulco, Guerrero. At the meeting, those presented agreed to dismantle the Guadalajara Cartel and divide its territories among themselves.[36]
Each drug lord was given a certain region where they could traffic
drugs to the U.S. and tax smugglers that wished to move merchandise on
their turf. The Arellano Félix brothers and other drug traffickers
formed the Tijuana Cartel, which controlled the Tijuana corridor and parts of Baja California; in Chihuahua state, a group controlled by the Carrillo Fuentes family formed the Juárez Cartel; and the remaining faction left to Sinaloa and the Pacific Coast and formed the Sinaloa Cartel under the traffickers Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, Héctor "El Güero" Palma, and Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán.[37][38] When Esparragoza Moreno became a free man, he joined the forces of the Juárez Cartel.[39][40]

Juárez Cartel

In 1993, Esparragoza Moreno joined the forces of the Juárez Cartel under the tutelage of the cartel's leader Amado Carrillo Fuentes (alias "El Señor de los Cielos"), a top drug baron in Mexico.[41][42]
During Esparragoza Moreno's tenure under Carrillo Fuentes, the Juárez
Cartel used sophisticated technology, such as large aircraft, to smuggle
narcotics, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine,
from Mexico to the U.S. The cartel had an important business
relationship with the Cali Cartel
in Colombia, and owned a number of storage places along the U.S.-Mexico
border that were used to hide their merchandise before it was smuggled.
The cartel's connection with the Mexico's justice system was reportedly
well-established too; it is believed that the former Mexican Army General José de Jesús Gutiérrez Rebollo
protected the Juárez Cartel until he was incarcerated for drug
trafficking offenses in 1997. In addition, during the 1990s, the Juárez
Cartel reportedly spent between US$20 and US$30 million financing each
of their smuggling networks, and generated millions more a week from
drug proceeds.[43]
Through a large network spread across the U.S., the Juárez Cartel
recruited gang members to move the drugs for them across urban areas
like Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Houston, Denver, Phoenix,
and New York City.[44]

In the cartel, Esparragoza Moreno initially worked as the operational
chief and later became the second-in-command, just behind Carrillo
Fuentes.[45] He was also a business partner with the imprisoned drug lord Juan José Quintero Payán (alias "Don Juanjo"), one of the founders of the Juárez Cartel.[46][47]
Esparragoza Moreno's role in the Juárez Cartel was that of a
negotiator, and he was responsible for forging alliances with Peruvian
and Colombian drug suppliers.[45][48] He was also a dispute arbitrator within the cartel and was credited for organizing a peace agreement with the Gulf Cartel in northern Mexico.[49]
Since his tenure in the Juárez Cartel, Esparragoza Moreno has
traditionally held leadership positions as a number-two figure, given
his preference to maintain a low-profile status and avoid getting
arrested or killed as the top kingpins usually do.[50]

In an attempt to change his physical appearance and avoid detection
from Mexican and U.S. law enforcement, Carrillo Fuentes decided in 1997
to undergo plastic surgery and relocate outside of Mexico.[43]
After the eight-hour-long surgery at the Santa Mónica Hospital in
Mexico City, Carrillo Fuentes died of a reported heart attack caused by
the overdose of the tranquilizer Dormicum or by a defect in a respirator.[51]
With Carrillo Fuentes's leadership void open, a power struggle within
the cartel ensued as their leaders and rival crime groups scrambled to
take over the kingpin's empire.[52][53] The natural successor was his brother Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, who appointed his brother Rodolfo, his nephew Vicente Carrillo Leyva, and others as part of his faction.[54][55] Esparragoza Moreno and others within the cartel, however, disagreed with the imposition of Carrillo Fuentes as the leader.[56]

The Federation / Sinaloa Alliance

Esparragoza has most recently been linked to leading "The Federation", an alliance of the Sinaloa, Juárez and Sonora (Caro-Quintero Organization) cartels.[57]

Bounty

Esparragoza Moreno is currently wanted by the United States Department of State under its Narcotics Rewards Program for a US$5 million bounty.[58] In Mexico, he is included in the country's list of its most-wanted drug lord's and the Mexican government is offering a $2 million reward for his arrest.[59]
In its wanted-poster description, the drug lord is said to have several
aliases aside from his trademark "El Azul": Juan José Esparragoza
Martínez, José Luis Esparragosa, Juan Esparragosa Ualino, Juan José
Esparragoza Italino, Juan José Esparraguza Valino, Juan Manuel Ortiz
Moreno, Arturo Beltrán, Raúl González, Juan Robles, Juan Robledo, and El
Huarache.[60][61]
The free toll telephone tip lines made by the U.S. and Mexican
governments are the following: in the U.S. it is 1-866-EL-AZUL-5
(1-866-352-9855) and in Mexico it is 01-800-9000-234 or 01-800-0025-200.[61]

Kingpin Act sanctions

The United States Department of the Treasury placed economic sanctions on nine entities and ten individuals linked to Esparragoza Moreno on 24 June 2012.[62]
In the statement, the United States froze the assets of the drug lord's
family members, which consisted of several gas stations, a shopping
center, a housing company, and other businesses.[63] The Treasury blacklisted the ten individuals and prohibited U.S. companies from doing business with them.[63] Six of the ten people sanctioned were family members of Esparragoza Moreno: two wives and four of his children.[62] One of his wives, however, owned a property directly under his name.[62] The other wife was sanctioned for owning seven gas stations on Esparragoza Moreno's behalf.[62]

The Treasury called Esparragoza Moreno a "godfather of Mexican
narcotics" who has used illicit money to build a network in the
legitimate business.[62][64]
While other Mexican drug lords have sought for more attention,
Esparragoza Moreno tried to keep a low-profile in hopes of avoiding
detection.[65][66]
Mexican investigators, however, have expressed their frustrations in
the announcements the United States makes on the kingpin act
designations, because they say that U.S. officials do not provide the
evidences necessary to prosecute the drug lords and their associates in
Mexican courts.[67]

Alejandra Araujo Uriarte, his mother-in-law, was blacklisted by the
U.S. Treasury in December 2014 for allegedly having had concealed assets
owned by Esparragoza Moreno. She was blacklisted because authorities
believe that after the drug lord's family members were sanctioned, his
wife began money laundering through her bank accounts.[68]

Alleged death

On
7 June 2014, Esparragoza Moreno (aged 65) reportedly died of a heart
attack following an accident he had suffered fifteen days earlier.
According to unconfirmed reports, Esparragoza Moreno was confined to a
bed after injuring his vertebral column in a car wreck. When he tried to get up from his bed, he suffered a heart attack and died.[69] Sources disagree on the exact location of his death; some sources state he died in Mexico City, while others suggest it may have been in Guadalajara. Esparragoza Moreno remains were reportedly cremated and sent to Culiacán, Sinaloa by his family members and friends.[70] The Mexican law enforcement and intelligence agencies Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) and the Centro de Investigación y Seguridad Nacional (CISEN) led the investigation along with the DEA.[71][72] The PGR chief Jesús Murillo Karam
indicated that the Mexican government did not count with sufficient
evidences to confirm the rumors surrounding the drug lord's death. The
mayor of Badiraguato Mario Valenzuela, as well as the Governor of
Sinaloa Mario López Valdez, stated that the rumors were false.[73][74]

On 11 June 2014, the CISEN, the PGR, and the Policía Ministerial
revealed that they had intelligence reports indicating that Esparragoza
Moreno may have died at a hospital in Culiacán (not in Guadalajara or
Mexico City, as previously stated). According to those unconfirmed
reports, Esparragoza Moreno was registered at the hospital under a fake
name and died there from a heart attack. Before authorities had a chance
to confirm his death, the investigation states, his corpse was taken
from the hospital and cremated the next day. The authorities carried out
similar investigations in Mexico City, Jalisco, Nuevo León, and
Sinaloa, but they have not found any information to confirm or deny the
rumors surrounding Esparragoza Moreno's death.[75][76]
On August 2014, José Juan Esparragoza Jiménez, the son of Esparragoza
Moreno, was arrested on charges of trafficking methamphetamine, cocaine
and marijuana. During his police interrogation, he stated that his
father was deceased.[77]